Boosting Cylive – One Platform to Share and Publish Digital Media

Cylive (pronounced ’sy-liv’) is a site created by Kiran S. Bettadapur from California that enables users to create, store and share a wide array of digital media content (mp3 audio, video, photos, personal writings) from one platform. The registered users have the option of sharing content publicly through the publishing feature so all users can see the content. In contrast, the private feature allows the creator to see the contents of their creation. In addition, the friends feature permits users to share the contents only among chosen users.

Cylive allows users to collaborate with their friends and family to jointly produce and publish content for public consumption. Users also have the power to customize material in new and unique ways. For instance, they can create a photo album with a voice clip attached to each photo in the album about how and when they took the snap.

Cylive is based on a content-type agnostic platform that gives users the flexibility to control who can do what and when with their content. For instance, you can assign ‘add photos’ privilege to everyone in your family, but only give ‘view photos’ right to your friends. These privileges can be either be specified individually for your contacts on Cylive or can be set through time restrictions for these rights.

Once published the content can be user rated, commented on and added to their favorites such as delicious. These features in addition to the blog section allow the creator to inform users of new updates, issues and build further rapport with users. This is a great approach for any new venture.

Personally, I found the site pleasant to look at, easy to navigate and understand. I thought that the concept of creating a site that allows users to tend to their content management needs on one platform to be quite innovative. This site is not just about blogging; the site has made an honest attempt to allow users more versatility. In terms of advice, I think that over time Kiran will add features to the site to make it more user friendly. For instance, a rating option for the comments themselves would be a great idea similar to the ratings and the number of views for articles. This will most likely take time as the website grows. Anyhow, I wish Kiran to keep improving his site with new features and user friendliness. My advice to Kiran would be to constantly be in touch with the users and see how they are responding to the experience in terms of their concerns and feedbacks. This is fundamental to any new venture wanting to succeed, as success is definitely a collaborative effort.